Although the use of surveillance technology by local michigan law enforcement agencies has increased in the past nine years, many agencies have said that they were wary of using artificial intelligence tools in the police, according to a survey published Wednesday by researchers from the University of Michigan.
The results were gathered through the Michigan public policies investigationAn underway investigation for general purposes of all 1,856 local governments, their leaders, local law organizations and local Michigan local prosecutors who have been conducted since 2009 by the Center for Local, State and Urban Policy at the University of Michigan.
For the survey of spring 2024, local leaders of government, elected county prosecutors of the county, local police chiefs and the county sheriffs were asked several questions on the use by their department of certain equipment and technologies as well as their value, such as the cameras of the body and the dashboard, drones, readers of automated license plaques and facial recognition technology. The results show that local officials reported a significant increase in the use of cameras and the surveillance technology between 2015 and 2024.
In 2015, body cameras were said to have been used by only 23% of the police. In 2024, the survey revealed that 77% of the courts used them. The use of dashboard cameras also increased from 55% to 74% of jurisdictions between the same years, and the use of the public surveillance camera increased from 28% to 50%. In addition, the use of drones increased from 3% to 31% of jurisdictions between 2015 and 2024.
Respondents were also asked about their point of view on the use of automated tools, such as AI and automatic learning models in criminal justice work, as well as their confidence in the effectiveness of said tools. Fifty-five percent of local government representatives said they did not know if the assessments carried out by automated tools are more or less precise than those made by humans. And, this uncertainty is even higher among the sheriffs and police chiefs, 59% affirming their uncertainty and 66% of prosecutors of the county of Michigan saying the same thing.
The survey also questioned the prosecutors on specific uses of AI tools in the work of their offices, and 50% said that they have at least trusted AI applications designed to identify high-risk districts, while at least 45% to trust the AI tools to process and analyze forensic evidence. Only 20% said that the AI trust capacity to carry out risk assessments for determining the penalty or parole, probation and release offers.
The report cites several investments in local institutions and law enforcement services have carried out in recent years to extend the use of these technologies as a reason for the evaluation of these feelings. The Grand Rapids police service, Michigan, has invested nearly $ 100,000 in 2023 to extend its drone systems. In 2023, following a mass shot On the campus that killed three other people injured, Michigan State University has invested millions of dollars in controversial Zeroeyes technology, which combines existing surveillance cameras with AI technology to detect visible firearms.
